[Hetty Gray by Rosa Mulholland]@TWC D-Link bookHetty Gray CHAPTER I 3/5
She clapped her hands in delight as the great creatures with their flowing manes came trotting up with their mighty hoofs close to her little toes. "You little one, run away," cried the man in care of the horses; and Hetty stole into the forge and stood nearer to the fire than she had ever dared to do before. "Hallo!" shouted Big Ben the smith; "if this mite hasn't got the courage of ten! Be off, you little baggage, if you don't want to have those pretty curls o' yours singed away as bare as a goose at Michaelmas! As for sparks in your eyes, you sha'n't have 'em, for you don't want 'em. Eyes are bright enough to light up a forge for themselves." "Aye," said the carter, "my missus and I often say she's too pretty a one for the likes of us to have the bringing up of on our hands.
And she's a rare one for havin' her own way, she is.
Just bring her out by the hand, will you, Ben, while I keep these horses steady till she gets away ?" Big Ben led the little maid outside the forge, and said, "Now run away and play with the other children"; and then he went back to set about the shoeing of John Kane's mighty cart-horses, or rather the cart-horses of Mr.Enderby of Wavertree Hall. Little Hetty, thus expelled, dared not return to the forge, but she walked backwards down the road, gazing at the horses as long as she could see them.
She loved the great handsome brutes, and if she had had her will would have been sitting on one of their backs with her arms around his neck.
Coming to a turn of the road from which a path led on to an open down, she blew a farewell kiss to the horses and skipped away across the grass among the gold-hearted, moonfaced daisies, and the black-eyed poppies in their scarlet hoods. There were no other children to be seen, but Hetty made herself happy without them.
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